Mark Zuckerberg Wants To Fix Facebook

2017 was the year of Facebook. From fake news, to the Russian interference, and terrorism, Facebook has made headlines at various times, mostly with good reason.

Straight after the 2016 US elections, Mark Zuckerberg made a pledge to travel across all 50 states and listen to the local communities and start a dialogue with them. Many initiatives have sprung from this personal journey, one of them being the Community Boost program aimed at, among others, bridging the digital gap between younger and older generations.

For 2018, Mark Zuckerberg is committing himself to something bigger, bolder, and perhaps unachievable; Fixing Facebook. A recent post reveals that he’s keeping an open line with Facebook users, and following international developments closely.

The world feels anxious and divided, and Facebook has a lot of work to do — whether it’s protecting our community from abuse and hate, defending against interference by nation states, or making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent.

This is a big challenge, and while Zuckerberg acknowledges that it’s hard to fully succeed, he promises to put the platform on a positive trajectory. It’s important to note that Facebook’s CEO also admits that there are many errors when it comes to enforcing and implementing policies, and preventing misuse of Facebook’s tools. This is in line with the latest reports that surfaced from ProPublica, revealing that Facebook is largely inconsistent when it comes to dealing with hate speech.

Another interesting part in Zuckerberg’s announcement is his willingness to explore the aspects of technology centralisation vs decentralisation, including negative and positive trends such as cryptocurrency. He has been a supporter of decentralisation since the inception of Facebook. We will be keeping an eye on how this will affect emerging technologies such as blockchain.